Tag Archives: Legalization of Drugs

This is in part due to the “balloon effect.” The drugs entering America used to be trafficked from Colombia through the Caribbean. Due to a nationwide crackdown on the Cali and Medellin drug cartels and to increased control of the Caribbean waters by the U.S., the balloon was squeezed and expanded in Mexico. As crackdowns in Mexico squeeze the balloon it expands southward into Central America. Already plagued by high levels of violence, their situation worsens.

The one country to escape this was Costa Rica, who is usually acknowledged as the exception to any discussions of the various plagues in Central America. That may be changing.

Today Costa Rica draws nearly a million U.S. tourists each year to its beaches and national parks. It has traffic cops who don’t expect bribes, tap water you can drink and a national motto — “pura vida” (pure life) — that serves as a greeting, a farewell and an all-around expression of tropical beatitude.

And now, with Mexican drug cartels moving in, Costa Rican exceptionalism is being challenged by the same criminal forces dragging down the rest of Central America.

Costa Rican officials and U.S. drug agents say this country of 4.6 million is one more chess piece in the traffickers’ push for control of smuggling routes through the region, now the primary conveyance for billions’ worth of South American cocaine bound for the United States. Costa Rica’s cops, courts and politicians have never confronted a test like the one they are facing from the vast corrupting powers of the cartels, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“I don’t remember in our whole history a menace like this menace from organized crime,” said Chinchilla, who was elected Costa Rica’s first female president in February 2010 on a law-and-order campaign that tapped into voters’ growing security fears.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of ideology your government has, whether it’s left or right,” she said. “This has to do with the survival of our institutions.”

One institution they famously do not have is an army.

“This is a perfect location, and when you have a country with no army, that is extremely worried with people’s privacy rights, who is going to stop them?” the U.S. official said.

One of the worse kept secrets in Latin America is that Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos believes in drug legalization. Back in the 1990s he co-signed an open letter to then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for an end to the war on drugs. And, since assuming office last year, Santos has hinted on several occasions that a new approach is needed in drug policy.

Earlier this week, Santos finally came out supporting the legalization of soft drugs, such as marijuana. In an interview published by Metro World News, Santos said that he favors legalization “provided everyone does it at the same time.” However, Santos balked at the idea of being the first sitting president to propose this in an international forum, citing mostly political reasons: “I would be crucified if I took the first step,” he said.

Despite Santos’s lukewarm endorsement of drug legalization, he adds his voice to the growing number of Latin American leaders calling for ending prohibition.

Colombia legalizing drugs won’t solve the problem; the U.S. must do it. Santos says that everyone must do it at the same time, but leaders in Colombia and Mexico are willing. They are only waiting for the U.S..

Mr Perry was speaking during a campaign appearance in New Hampshire.
“It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and keep them off our border,” he said.
Such a move would go far beyond current US involvement in Mexico’s drugs war.
The suggestion is also likely to irritate Mexico’s government over the sensitive issue, correspondents say.
Governor Perry gave no further details of what sort of possible military intervention he would consider.
“I don’t know all the different scenarios that would be out there,” he said.
“But I think it is very important for us to work with them to keep that country from failing”.

Let us hope that he didn’t clear this idea with his campaign advisers. First, the Mexican government would most likely not approve such support. (Without their support, it is no longer assistance, but rather an invasion.) So perhaps it’s a moot point. Second, the move is entirely unnecessary for a nation with a broken army, deficits as far as the eye can see, and overflowing prisons. If Perry, or any leader, truly wanted to win the drug war, they would defund the violence by legalizing the drugs the cartels are fighting to traffic. It is sad that no serious political leaders – except for and – are willing to state the obvious: we Americans like our marijuana and cocaine, and Mexicans are dying to get it to us.